


Garden of Memories

by orphan_account



Series: Enchanted Worlds [21]
Category: Princess Tutu
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-04
Updated: 2014-04-04
Packaged: 2018-01-18 04:20:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1414900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ahiru revisits her uncle's mansion and experiences a surprising revelation about her past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Garden of Memories

Something made the train jolt a little as it hurried down the tracks; for a stray moment in her dream, Ahiru thought there'd been an earthquake. But then the midmorning sunlight touched her eyelids and more tactical sensations made themselves known, banishing the dream and reducing it to a thin haze at the back of her mind. She blinked slowly, trying not to squint at the light that would've been far less harsh had she stayed awake during the journey, and let the memories of where she was and what she was doing flow back into her mind.

"You're awake?"

Ahiru lifted her head to look at Fakir, instantly missing the warmth of his arm where her cheek had been pressed against it. She nodded. "Y-yeah. Are we almost there?" She just barely finished her sentence before it turned into a yawn.

"Yeah." Fakir's gaze strayed for a moment at the scenery rushing past the window, and then went back to Ahiru's sleepy face. "It won't be long now."

"O-okay." Fresh anxiety flared up in her; she still wasn't quite ready for this. "A-and, um…" Ahiru glanced down at where she was holding Fakir's hand. Her last clear memory from before she'd fallen asleep was slipping her hand into his, and him gently squeezing it. "S-sorry about falling asleep on you." She yawned again.

Fakir shook his head. "I don't mind. Don't worry about it." He glanced over at the seat across from them and saw that Chrestomanci was still reading the book she'd brought along, seemingly unmindful of the conversation going on. He doubted that was really the case, though. "Did you at least sleep well?"

Ahiru nodded. "I - I think. I didn't get much sleep last night cause I was so nervous, I mean, I'm still nervous but I could barely sleep last night so I was really tired and I kind of dozed off and I feel a little better now, I think. I'm not as tired, at least."

"That's good." He rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb. "It's okay to be nervous about this, you know."

"Y-yeah, I - I know." Ahiru swallowed and looked down at her lap. "I kinda wish I didn't have to do this, though. D-do you know what I mean?"

"I do," Chrestomanci said without looking up, before Fakir could even open his mouth to form a reply. "However, I also think that in the end you may be glad of the closure you gain, if some is granted to you today. At the very least, it will be an ending to this part of your life, and will benefit you in material ways if nothing else."

"Th-that's true…" Ahiru looked over at her, and then back out the window. A twinge of guilt poked at her - Fakir had insisted she take the window seat, knowing she liked to look out the window, and then she'd fallen asleep on him. Knowing him, she doubted he cared, but all the same she felt bad. On the way home she'd insist he have it. It was only fair.

For now, though, she leaned her head against his arm again, attempting to delay their arrival somehow by not looking outside. It didn't work, but then again maybe it was better to just get this over with. She consoled herself with that thought as they disembarked from the train and made their way to the car that had been arranged to pick them up at the station. They kept holding hands the entire time, and just before they would've let go to climb inside the car Ahiru squeezed his hand, and Fakir looked at her. "Ahiru?"

"Thank you." It was barely above a whisper. "Thank you for coming with me today. You - you didn't have to, but… thank you for the support."

"Of course." Fakir squeezed her hand. "I wouldn't leave you to face something like this alone unless you wanted me to."

"I - I know." Ahiru gave him a small smile, and then let go of his hand so she could climb into the car. Chrestomanci was already in the front seat, and Fakir got in beside Ahiru. Once everyone was settled in the driver took off through the city. The anxious feeling that had been simmering inside Ahiru ever since she'd been informed of the necessity of this trip came to a full boil as the car took them closer and closer to their destination. She wasn't so caught up in her own dread that she missed the strange expression on Fakir's face, however, and she reached over to touch his shoulder. "Fakir? A-are you okay?"

"I…" Fakir took a deep breath and let it out. "No, I… I'm fine, I just…" He rubbed his eyes with one hand as he stared out the car window. "I don't know. There's something weirdly familiar about all this…" He gestured to what they could see outside the vehicle. "And there really shouldn't be."

"Why shouldn't it be?" Chrestomanci asked, without turning around. "Are you so certain of your own memories that you distrust your instincts? Our brains may often seek to deceive us, and we are none the wiser, but equally often it may be that some part of us cries out the truth. We need only learn how to listen."

Fakir frowned. "Are you saying that I've been here before and don't remember it for some reason?"

"You tell me." The car drew to a stop, and they all began to fumble with their seat belts once the driver turned the engine off. "Think it over, journey into the past, discover. You may be surprised with what you learn about yourself."

Fakir started to reply, but then he caught a glimpse of Ahiru's face as she paled at the sight of the massive double doors at the end of the short but stately walkway before them. He reached for her hand, and held it tightly as they headed up the path together. They both knew it was Chrestomanci's doing that the doors opened on their own to welcome them in, but it was unnerving nevertheless.

Inside, the curtains had all been removed or pulled open and lamps lit, yet the light still seemed dim somehow. And for all that large teams of people had worked hard to clean and clear things out, there was still the smell of dust permeating the halls, and beneath it the faint whiff of bad magic. Ahiru shuddered as it tickled her nose, and turned her head towards Fakir, hoping to breathe in a bit of the warm, comforting scent of him as a countermeasure against this place. For all the differences and the distance in time, it still somehow felt like she had only walked out of this mansion yesterday, instead of six years prior.

"Most of the rooms have been emptied." Ahiru jumped as Chrestomanci came up behind them, her voice echoing slightly. "There were a great many illegal or stolen objects, and in some cases entire roomfuls of things had to be… disposed of because of foul workings done on them, or in others all the furniture pieces were false, merely vessels for holding contraband goods."

"That… that makes sense…" Ahiru blinked as she looked around. "There were lotsa rooms where I wasn't supposed to sit down or poke around, and if he was hiding things that explains it cause he wouldn't have wanted me to find it or - or damage it somehow by sitting on it."

"The manor seems to have served as the base of his operations for many years, and as such most of its rooms and the furnishings within were dedicated to that purpose." Had the two turned to see her face, they would've noticed the flash of anger in her eyes at this. It was no place to raise a child, and roused her ire at how Drosselmeyer had treated his young niece all over again every time she brooded on it. "That said, there were still a great deal of personal objects left within the halls once the inspections and investigations had been completed, and they've been consolidated into a handful of rooms to simplify this process for you."

"Oh. So…" Ahiru thought about that. "I don't… have to go through the whole house?"

"Not unless you wish to." Chrestomanci shook her head as Ahiru turned hers to look at her. "All the rooms upstairs are bare, so you are not required to venture up there unless you have a desire to see it. Legally you are only bound to look over and decide the fates of the possessions gathered in the rooms down here; however, if you want to explore more of the house, you are absolutely free to do so."

"I…" Ahiru swallowed. "I - I'll see how I feel. L-let's just look at the first room of stuff r-right now…"

"Very well." Chrestomanci moved to walk ahead of them. "Right this way, then."

It might have been Ahiru's imagination, but the house seemed to get darker and smell worse the further on they walked into it. It made her head hurt, and the nausea that had flared up in her as soon as they walked through the doors worsened. On top of that, wherever she looked, whether it was at the walls or the floor, she felt dizzy and her vision swam a little the longer she stared. So her gaze flitted about from point to point, and whenever she could she fixed it on Fakir's hand at her side where she held it. Looking at him was the only thing that helped, though her need to see where she was going kept her from letting her eyes linger on him for very long.

After what seemed a very long trip, Chrestomanci eased open another set of double doors. They'd been oiled recently, but the hinges still squeaked slightly. Ahiru blinked and raised her free hand to shield her eyes as she adjusted to the brightness of the light within. The room looked wholly unfamiliar until she realized: all the heavy, dark curtains over the windows had been removed, allowing light to come in and exposing the old, old panes.

"What… what _is_ this?" While Ahiru adjusted to the difference between her memories of the room and its present state, Fakir had taken in its contents with no small amount of revulsion. "This is… ugh…"

"Oh!" Ahiru lowered her hand, and finally took a good look at what was so disturbing to Fakir. Countless taxidermied birds stared at them from display shelves and hung from the ceiling: white swans, black swans, owls, crows, and ravens. Light glinted off their glassy eyes; there was a look to the birds that was halfway between alive and dead, and was fully uncanny and unnerving. Ahiru could feel Fakir's hand trembling in hers. "My uncle called this his aviary… I never liked it either." She looked up at him, and noticed that some color had gone out of his face. "Fakir? A-are you okay?"

"I - I've never…" He paused, and when he spoke again she heard shame in his voice. "I've always been… a little afraid of crows and ravens. Ever since I was a child. I know that must sound stupid, but…"

"No, it doesn't." Ahiru squeezed his hand. "Not at all. I told you, I didn't like this room either." She turned to Chrestomanci. "Um, what am I supposed to do with all these? I - I really don't want them for myself…"

Chrestomanci shrugged. "You can either have them disposed of, or try to find someone willing to purchase them."

"I can't imagine who'd want to buy them," Ahiru said with a shudder. "But… I guess it'd also be kinda sad for the birds to just get thrown away or burned or something, it'd be like dying again, so… I guess I'll try and sell them."

"Very well." Chrestomanci produced a notepad and a pen, and began jotting something down. "These, along with anything else you deem salable, will be put up for auction, and all the proceeds will be deposited into your account." She looked back up at them. "Shall we move on?"

"Y-yeah!" Ahiru nodded vigorously, and squeezed Fakir's hand again. He was still spooked, and didn't stop shaking until they were out of the room and well down the hall away from it. She couldn't blame him. As a little girl, she'd been forbidden from entering that room after she'd almost knocked over one of the birds on her first visit, and had been quite content to obey that order and stay away from it ever after. The whole reason for the near-disaster had, after all, been because she'd backed away from one of the creepiest ones in terror, and collided with another in her haste. She suspected that her uncle's towering rage at the incident had been composed not just of anger at the accident, but also of disappointment and irritation that she hadn't reacted to his prize collection the way he'd wanted her to.

The labyrinthine network of halls was as confusing as she remembered it, and every bit as distressing now as it had been back then - as their journey continued Ahiru became more and more unsettled and uncomfortable. Memories like ghosts sprang out at her from around every turn, out of every doorway; more than once she thought she heard noises that shouldn't have been there. Her fear growing with every step, she clutched Fakir's hand as though it was a life raft, hoping she wasn't hurting him. To the contrary, however, he seemed to understand, and gave her hand comforting squeezes from time to time, without uttering a single word of complaint or reproach for the tight grip she had on him.

When they finally reached the next room Ahiru would've been uncertain if they'd gone further into the manor to reach it or had actually doubled back if not for the windows at the far end that looked out onto the gardens, unlike the aviary windows that offered a view of the city street now that the curtains were gone. Age, neglect, and possibly the aftereffects of unpleasant magic had taken their toll on them and they were thus difficult to see out of, but Ahiru nevertheless could tell that the gardens were out there beyond the glass.

"These are the bulk of your uncle's personal effects," Chrestomanci said, interrupting Ahiru's attempts at getting a good look out the windows. "They were gathered and assembled here from various rooms and halls within the house, and are yours to do with what you will."

"I…" Ahiru's stomach clenched and turned over as she took her first good look at what filled the room: countless old clocks, and spooky puppets and dolls of various size. These she remembered well from her years here, and not fondly. The clocks were all stopped, but she could almost hear their ticking and the eerie, mournful chimes as they marked each hour if she concentrated, which she definitely didn't want to do. The puppets and dolls leered at her, seemingly even more alive than the stuffed birds ever had been, and she shrank away from their gazes. Every one seemed to possess the spirit of her dead uncle - for he had been pronounced as such again, leaving all that was in the house to her provided it wasn't contraband material - and alternately laughed or glared at her depending on how she looked at them or how the light caught their eyes. _It is your fault,_ they seemed to be saying when they glared, _your fault that our master is no longer here. How dare you! Wicked, arrogant upstart! If only you had known your place!_

"Ahiru?" Fakir looked down at her. She was even paler than he'd been when confronted with the taxidermied birds, and was shaking harder than he had as well. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah… no… n-no, I need…" Ahiru shook her head. "Um, I… I don't w-want any of this stuff, I wanna sell it all… I think… I don't know…" She took several gulping breaths, as if trying not to throw up. "I… I…" She looked wildly around, and spotted a door at the back of the room, which eased a small amount of her nausea just by the sight of it. "I… s-sorry, I can't… I need some fresh air, I c-can't…" She took off at a near-run for the door, letting go of Fakir's hand, and he followed after her without sparing a glance backward at Chrestomanci.

Calm greeted them when they entered the garden, calm and quiet. The noises of the city were made distant and muffled by the sounds of wind rustling the trees and birds chirping and the faraway sound of water, and maybe even by magic. Color and scent and soft sound surrounded Ahiru, and in the cool, fresh air she began to breathe easier. The smell of dust and bad magic and worse memories had been left behind her inside the house, and the quiet thud of Fakir closing the door behind them seemed to close them off, leave the two adrift now in this other world.

The garden had always felt separated from the house somehow, really; it was why it had been something of a sanctuary for her, Ahiru recalled as she took a few tentative steps forward. It was much like she remembered, though not identical to the garden in her memory. Despite spells laid on it to prevent total disrepair and chaos, time and neglect had nevertheless worn away at its beauty. Shrubs and flower beds had withered or become overgrown, trellises were choked with vines, some of them dead or dying, and the stone paths were nearly lost beneath fallen leaves and flower petals.

"This…" Ahiru's attention was drawn to Fakir as he spoke up, and she stared in surprise at the look on his face. "I remember this… I think… but it didn't look like this, it was… it was being cared for, back then."

"What?" Ahiru's nose crinkled. "H-how could you remember this? You've never been here… how could you have seen it?"

"I don't know…" Fakir shook his head. "I'm not sure why it feels familiar. But it does. So strongly I can't ignore it."

"That's weird." Ahiru paused for a moment, and then took his hand. "Come on, let's walk around a little. I - I need some time out here before I'm ready to go back in…"

"Mmmm." Fakir walked with her, careful to avoid bumping into any thorny rosebushes. They passed a dried-up birdbath, and he frowned. "Did you come out here a lot when you were little?" he asked after a short while of wandering.

"Yeah, I…" Ahiru's voice trailed off as they walked under a weeping willow tree, and a strange expression came over her face for a moment. "I, um… it was a good way to get out of the house and I liked all the flowers and the birds and…" She craned her neck to stare behind them at something they'd just passed. "Um… it was the only place I could play, though I was always by myself…"

"You didn't have any friends?" Fakir found his heart aching for her all over again even as something whispered inaudibly to him at the back of his memory. From a solitary childhood in a terrible place like this with her awful uncle, to an orphanage where she was the object of ridicule and scorn and treated with cruelty and derision… no wonder she'd been so sad and lonely when she came to the castle. His fingers tightened around hers and he wished again that he'd been kinder to her when she first arrived.

"No." Ahiru shook her head. "He - he never let me leave, and he didn't let anyone else come in except people doing business with him, so I had to play by myself and…" Her voice faltered as they passed a statue of a looming, enormous bird with cruel eyes, and came to a fountain where, if it had been working, the huge swan would've spouted water into a pool. "I…"

"I know this…" Fakir's mouth hung open slightly as he stared at the old fountain. "I've seen it… I remember now… I…" He turned to Ahiru, and their faces had the same expression of dawning realization writ on them. "You…"

"Ah!" Ahiru clapped both hands over her mouth, her eyes going as wide as they possibly could. Images and memories spun round her in a flurry of sudden recall, overwhelming her; she could see in his eyes that Fakir was equally overwhelmed. "It was… I remember now too… you really were here… we…"

"I thought it was a dream…" Fakir's gaze traveled around to the fountain, the trees, and then back to Ahiru's face. "All these years, I thought it was a dream… I forgot about it after a while, but…" He looked at the fountain again, and in his mind's eye, he could see a much younger Ahiru kneeling beside it, birds gathered around her and on her shoulders and head. He looked back at her, and felt sick with guilt. "How could I have forgotten you?"

"I… it…" Ahiru lowered her hands a little as she stared back at him. She too could remember it now, could remember looking up from where she sat on the ground to see a strange boy looking at her, remembered him introducing himself as "Fakir" and insisting that he didn't know how he'd gotten there. "It was a really long time ago, I forgot too… don't feel bad…"

 _Had_ he forgotten, though? Fakir tried to think back to the moment he'd seen her in the castle that evening when she'd first arrived, recalling the way his heart had raced at the sight of her face. He'd thought it was merely instant attraction, but was that all? Could there have been a spark of subconscious recognition buried in it? "I still don't…" He took a breath. "I don't know how I got in here in the first place still… or how I found the way out… I guess that's why I thought I was dreaming…" He rubbed his forehead. "I fell asleep on the train home, and I guess I thought I dreamed it then… but I still…"

"You still what?" Ahiru stepped closer to him.

"I thought about you a lot for a while after that." Fakir's voice shook as more memories flooded through him. "I wanted… I wasn't sure if you were real or not, but I wanted to rescue you. I kept thinking about how scared you were of your uncle and I wanted to defeat him and get you away from him." His ears felt hot as he recalled his childish determination, how naïve he'd been. "So I practiced magic… and I started playing with a sword too… I guess that's when my interest in it started."

"F-for me?" Ahiru felt a blush of her own starting.

"Yeah." Fakir nodded. "I wanted to help you. But… I was never able to do anything for you." His gaze fell to the ground. "I'm sorry. I failed you."

"Oh, Fakir, no, no you didn't!" Ahiru moved closer to him and reached up to touch his cheek. "That's not true, you did help me, you just did it differently and years later. Remember? You helped me study magic and find my weakness, a-and that was really important, that was even better. If you hadn't done that for me, I wouldn't have been able to defeat him in that garden, remember? You were a big help."

"… That's true." Fakir tried to smile. "Better late than never, I guess."

"Yeah, see?" Ahiru smiled back, and then wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug. "You didn't let me down, Fakir. You gave me everything I needed when I really needed it, so I was able to find my own strength and beat him. You made me stronger. You always do. Thank you, and please don't feel guilty."

"I'll try not to." Fakir slipped his arms around her and returned the hug. "I still wish I could've helped you sooner, helped spare you years of pain… but if you're glad for what I eventually did, then I'll try to let that be enough."

"You should, cause it's enough for me." She pressed her face into his chest, reveling anew in the feel and scent of him, the warmth of his arms around her. Her time in this house still seemed like a bad dream to her, but here, here was an anchor to a piece of wonderful reality. They held each other for a few minutes without speaking before Ahiru half-reluctantly pulled away, only to take his hand and tug on it. "Come on, I wanna see if it's still the same as it was back then."

Fakir let her pull him along, just like she had all those years ago. "It?"

"Yeah, it! You'll know it when you see it!" Her heart fluttered as she led him along the paths. It had been so long, but she was fairly certain she remembered the way. She glanced over at him, and couldn't help but notice how much bigger Fakir's hands were than they'd been back then, and how much the height difference between them had increased. His hair was longer too, and of course his voice had deepened, was no longer the child's voice of her memory. He'd grown so much, was _still_ getting taller, and was so handsome now too. It was strange to realize that he was the same person as the little boy she'd met all those years ago, but something about it seemed right too. They'd _both_ grown up, and fallen in love after finally meeting again - how miraculous and wonderful, how happy a twist of fate.

The honeysuckle on the trellis was still there, still as out of control as ever, and Ahiru spared it a wondering glance as they passed. Just beyond it, a worn and crumbling fence surrounded a little pool. Dead leaves and algae littered its surface, with no fish to be seen in the dark water, but Fakir instantly recognized it all the same. The fence that had seemed so tall to them then - to Ahiru especially - was now so short they could easily have stepped over it and gone into the pool had they the desire.

"You showed me this," Fakir said in a hushed voice. "There were fish, back then…"

"Y-yeah… and you made something happen with the water, with your magic. It… it was really impressive." Ahiru blushed. "I, um… now that I think about it, I think I… I think I kinda had a crush on you."

"Me too. I mean…" Fakir blushed too. "I had a little crush on you too, I think… that's why I wanted to impress you. And also cause you seemed so lonely." He reached out with his free hand and brushed some hair away from her face. "I… wanted to do things for you to make you happy… so I did that, and we played together…"

"See?" A smile grew on her face, and she could feel happy tears pricking at her eyes. "You've always made me happy… back then and right now. Especially now."

"I remember I wanted you to come with me." Fakir stroked her cheek. "But you couldn't. I… I'm so glad we found each other again."

"Me too!" Ahiru's eyes sparkled. "It - it's amazing, don't you think? We met that one time, and we really liked each other, but then we didn't see each other for years and years after that… and then I came to the castle, and you were living there too, and we became friends and now we love each other and… it's pretty incredible it worked out that way. Don't you think so?"

"… Yeah." Fakir nodded. "It is. And when you think about the kind of magic we both have, and that you have nine lives… it's like we were always supposed to meet, no matter what."

"Y-yeah!" Ahiru beamed. "A-and I'm really happy about that. I remember… after you left, it was really sad, cause… cause I thought I'd never see you again, and I kept looking for you every day for a while hoping you'd find your way in here again but you didn't and I kinda think I forgot about it so that I wouldn't be as sad cause if I remembered I'd had a friend for a day and then lost you it'd kinda be sadder than thinking I'd never had one at all. Or something. I dunno."

"I think… I stopped thinking about it so much after the fire." Fakir's gaze dropped again. "It happened only a few months after I met you… I couldn't have come back even if I'd thought about it in the midst of all that." He didn't remember all of what he'd dreamed about in the delirious haze of pain from the burns and their treatment, but he had a feeling that comforting visions of his encounter with Ahiru had been interspersed with nightmares about the fire.

"Oh… I…" Ahiru's face fell. "I'm sorry… I didn't mean to make you think of that…"

"It's all right." Fakir smiled, and touched her cheek again. "I'm just… I'm glad I found you again. I can't imagine not having you in my life."

"Me too!" Ahiru's smile reappeared. "I can't imagine not having you in my life either, I'm so glad we found each other again… my life is better cause you're in it."

Fakir leaned down at the same time that Ahiru leaned up, and they both let out identical sighs as their lips met. They held each other tightly as they kissed beside the old pool, kissing each other with an even fiercer passion than they had ever before had, fueled by the regained memories of their shared past. They didn't know how long they stayed there, but when they finally, reluctantly headed back to the house, Ahiru did so with a new strength and readiness to face the rest of her past.


End file.
